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EXHIBITIONS

ON VIEW

Parent’s White Lies

The Early Days of PostSecret

SCREENING ROOM

WATCH

Half a Million Secrets

EXHIBITION

The Early Days of PostSecret

About the exhibition

Welcome to the first exhibition in the Digital Museum of Secrets! These postcards are the first ever mailed to PostSecret in 2004 and 2005. Do they look different visually? Are there common themes two decades later? How will the secret evolve two decades from today?

Looking back at the early days

Frank Warren, creator of PostSecret.com welcomes you to this first exhibition in our brand new Digital Museum of Secrets

Gallery of secrets

Hand picked postcards from the early archives

When I was a young teenager I used to babysit my next door neighbours son. When he was asleep I would go through their bedside drawers. I found a packet of condoms. I put a pin through the middle of each of them, and thus ensured myself another 5 years of babysitting.

The Early Days of PostSecret

When I was a young teenager I used to babysit my next door neighbours son. When he was asleep I would go through their bedside drawers. I found a packet of condoms. I put a pin through the middle of each of them, and thus ensured myself another 5 years of babysitting.
While others pray at church. I bow my head and think about the TV programs I plan on watching.
I almost took my life four years ago. The suffering felt inescapable at the time. Things have gotten better since then. In fact, my life is better today because of the great depression I passed through.
I started shooting Heroin again.
I used to pee into snowballs before throwing them at friends
My friends and I printed and sold phony raffle tickets for Junior Achievements
No stressful job or rush-hour traffic- No medical bills or family responsibilities- I want to break into prison.
My mom died 7 years ago, we havent re-recorded her voice on the voicemail machine... I call to hear her voice
Shoplift
I have the password to my ex-boxfriends email and I go in and read and/or erase emails he has no clue!
I say Im a vegetarian. But I eat meat on the sly!
I want to be a Outlaw Biker
In 4th grade... my friend made me laugh so hard, I actually POOPED my pants! We are still friends (and she never told anyone)
I still havent told my father that I have the same disease that killed my mother.
I fear I have an undiagnosed mental illness
I tell my wife I dont want her to get implants but Im lying
I know my parents secret: My birth was a mistake.
I love black girls and I am white (Its OK!)
I made love at Artomatic, In the annex, It was beautiful and revived my marriage.
I havent spoken to my dad in 10 years... and it kills me everyday.
I like to have sex with strangers
My parents think Im checking my email when Im reading online erotica.
When I was a kid... I threw eggs into my neighbors pool
I liked myself better as a boy
I have thrown 47 bottles into a lake
I wet the bed well into junior high. Then once in college it happened again when a girlfriend was sleeping over.
They took turns spitting into my eyes
I love one of my children
She is the MAN in the relationship
I dont know what I want but I dont want this...
I tell people Im an atheist, but I believe Im going to hell.
I really enjoy funerals
I feel trapped in a relationship with the greatest girl ever... because Im still in love with a bitch.
When I worked at the post office as a clerk, I would read postcards as I sorted them. Are you guys still doing that?
I use my parents condoms for... well... my own pleasures
Before I mail a bill I dont want to pay, I stick the check between my BUT CHEEKS, then I put it in the envelope
I would like to party with the Bush Twins
Wall of bricks with a face visible through a gap. The text reads I believe that my dead grandmother watches me with great disappointment every time I masturbate.
As a kid I slipped Hershey Bars up my sleeve at the Grocery Store and Id go to the store Bathroom to eat them.
I want to be an artist
The word Adultery written in large letters with a background colored with markers
I believe I will accomplish something truly great in this lifetime. I am going to be 53 tomorrow - Written on a watercolor background
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    Stories from the community

    These secrets were shared on an answering machine we set-up for anonymous messages.

    Just another american teenager

    This is what I tell everyone about myself, to make myself more interesting

    Changing lifes

    Thank you for saving my life

    I recorded this about 10 times

    Is taking a hell of a lot of courage to send this in

    The Very first PostSecret Exhibition at Artomatic in 2005.

    Most of these hanging secrets were made from postcards I handed out in Washington DC. You can see how right from the start people incorporated drawings, pictures, graphics, and other art to further convey the emotion behind the confession.

    From the early archives

    Scroll through this early version of the PostSecret blog. 800,000,000+ views and 17 years later, still extraordinary secrets and no paid advertisements.

    A project before PostSecret

    Before PostSecret, I worked on two other postcard art projects. “Reluctant Oracle” was about wonder. You can still search the web and find newspaper articles and TV news segments about the mysterious bottles of Clopper Lake. Here is one segment that appeared on the FOX affiliated in Washington, DC. The other postcard art project I worked on before that was in Paris and based on a lucid dream. More on that to come…

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